Mr. Frank Beverley ……. Chorlton-cum-Hardy .... 1937

This is Frank Beverley, and in 1937 he stood as the Labour Party candidate in the Municipal Elections.

Vote for Frank Beverley, 1937

And to date there is little more I can find about him.

I think he was born in the January of 1911, and his parents were George and Ada who were living on Chester Road.  George Beverley was a cabinet maker and Frank was one of six children, and in the March of 1911, he was baptised in St Mathew’s Church.

After that a Frank Beverley is recorded in the 1939 Register as living in lodgings in Southport working as a tool maker.

There will be more but at present that is it.

Election material, 1980

Which brings me back to the 1937 election and his candidacy.  

According to the Manchester Guardian “Sixty-eight candidates – 31 Labour, 26 Conservatives, seven Liberals and four Independents were nominated for the elections, but as eight of them, four Labour, three Conservatives and one Liberal were returned unopposed there were contests in only 28 of the 36 wards into which the city is divided,”*

The results showed little change with the Tories gaining one extra seat, and Labour losing one with losses by the Liberals to both Conservative and Independent candidates.  

At the end of the night the new balance of power favoured the Tories, with 64 Conservative Councillors, 52 Labour, 22 Liberal and 6 Independents. 

I have yet to find Mr. Beverley’s election address, but the Manchester Guardian reported that “no single major issue is at stake and the campaign has largely resolved around the question of rates, and social services generally, although traffic congestion and exorbitant price demanded for land for rehousing on cleared sites near the centre of the city have had a good deal of attention from Liberal and Labour candidates.”**

The agreement between the Conservative and Liberals not to put up candidates against each other which had been a feature of the last all out Council elections in 1931 in an effort to maximize an anti Labour vote had broken down, but this did not impact on Labour’s result.

The result, 1937

As for Frank in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, he lost.  

The Tories polled 5,776 votes and Labour 2,052.

Undeterred he accepted the nomination to stand again in 1939 but withdrew in the October “owing to a change in his employment [and so] would be unable to contest the forthcoming election”***

It is unclear whether he was a member of the Chorlton branch, but the Party conveyed their best “thanks for past services and best wishes for his future success.” 

All of which suggests he was the Frank Beverley working in Southport.

Mr. Beverley, 1937

But that like so much about him remains to be discovered, including just who left the leaflet at the Town Hall for Cllr Mathew Benham who is one of the three elected Labour Councillors for Chorlton who as elected a full 85 years after Mr. Beverley contested the seat. 

Location; Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Election leaflet, courtesy of Cllr Mathew Benham and election material from 1980, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Independents Gain Most in Manchester, Manchester Guardian, November 2nd, 1937

**Today’s Municipal Elections, Manchester Guardian, November 1st, 1937

***Minutes of the Chorlton-cum-Hardy Labour Party, October 11th, 1939.

The class of ’68 part 7 ……. Ranger's House and a folk concert

Now, a little bit of my past has bounced back into my life in the form pf a program and a folk concert ticket.

'....... all that life can afford', 1967

And what follows is less a bit of vanity and more just a comment on how exciting it was to be at one of our big three comprehensives in the late 1960s.

The three were Crown Woods, Eltham Green and Kidbrook, and I went to Crown Woods.

And in the December of 1967 along with some close friends and lots of other people, I took part in two performances of “all that life can afford” at the Ranger’s House in Blackheath.

The house dates from the 1720s and was a fitting venue for a performance of selected verse, prose and music from the 18th century.

The show lasted for two nights, and drew on the writings of Daniel Defoe, James Boswell, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and John Wesley, along with Voltaire, Bernard de Mandeville and the duc de Liancourt.

From the program, cast, writers and researcher, 1967

And dominating the evening was Samuel Johnson, whose throwaway comment that “He that is tired of London is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford”, provided the title for the show.

The sequence was in two parts, the first offering up “pictures of the streets [with] gin drinking, poverty and crime and punishment”, and the second exploring “the intellectual and religious life, as well as entertaining in high society, the military and naval activities of Blackheath and Greenwich and the famous Greenwich Fair.” *

The night concluded with the sonnet Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 by William Wordsworth, which is near you will get to the perfect piece of praise for the city of London.

I remember I had been less than willing to participate and had a long conversation with Mr. Marland who was Head of English and put forward a series of reasons why I couldn’t take part, each of which was more desperate and unconvincing than the one before.

When finally, I gave in, and agreed, Mr. Marland gave me the script with my name at the top and the part I was to play already identified.

Some of the class of '68, 1968

The two nights were a great success but were only one of a number of different performances which the school had offered up.

These included, The Causian Chalk Circle by Bertolt Brecht, An Enemy of the People by Ibsen, Billy Liar, Antigone, The Peterloo Massacre, and the sixteenth century play Gammer Gurton’s Needle along with other dramatic and musical anthologies.

All of which sat beside regular evenings of poetry, prose and music performed by the staff and students of the English Department.

Ranger's House and Samuel Johnson, 1967

Now I fully accept that similar events went on at Eltham Green and Kidbrook, and I do remember the annual Sixth Form Conferences attended by schools from across the capital which featured some of the best figures from the sciences and the arts who were invited to speak.

The point is that these were put on by comprehensive schools, and not grammar or public schools and in doing so were proudly asserting that they were the equal and perhaps superior to the older and established “places of education”.

Nor did it stop there, because Crown Woods gave us the opportunity to act independently.


In the winter of 1967 Dave Hatch and I were allowed to do our own radio show, featuring folk music, which went out on the internal radio system.

And a little later, when I asked if I could run a series of folk concerts with local singers in the school library, the answer was yes.

Folk at Crown Woods, 1968

I long ago forgot the details and had just a vague memory of who performed, but here Dave came to my rescue again, by telling me “you said that you couldn't remember many details. 

The names of two performers stuck in my mind; Gordon Giltrap, who you recruited one Friday night at the Tigers Head, and Terry Yarnell, who worked with Anne's father in Silvertown at International Paints”.

All these opportunities could be replicated by countless others, but I think there was something special in being at one of the “big three” in Eltham and Kidbrook back then.

Pictures; Crown Woods School in “……. all that life can afford”, the folk concert ticket, and the picture of some of the class of ’68, program courtesy of Anne Davey who kept them in her scrap book and Dave hatch for sending them up to me

*Crown Woods School in “……. all that life can afford”. 

Sunlight House a building “which has improved the appearance of the city and given it a dignity”

Sunlight House, © 2013 Peter Topping

Sunlight House is still a pretty impressive building and has been so since it was built in 1932 by the architect Joseph Sunlight.

It stands on Quay Street just down from Deansgate and a little before you get to the Opera House.

It was at the time according to the Manchester Guardian, “the tallest and largest building in Manchester, [standing] on a site of 3,000 square yards and rises 200 feet from the red rock foundations to its roof ridge. 

People who pass it are amazed at its massiveness.  It is a landmark which can be seen on a clear day from the Belmont Hills beyond Bolton, twenty miles distant.” 

Now I rather think I will go looking for what people thought about the building in 1931, and particularly on its impact as a landmark, if only to reflect on the response to that other tall building, which is the Beetham Tower.

The Beetham Tower is the tallest building in the Manchester dominating the sky line and can be seen from miles outside the city.

I do have mixed feelings about this modern giant alternating between that easy and lazy response that it is a blot on the landscape to marvelling at its sheer size and elegance.  But that I guess is how all new buildings are viewed.

Like Sunlight House the Tower sits on a comparatively small plot on Deansgate and is named after its developers.

But this is not about the Beetham Tower so I shall return to that article from the Guardian which writes

“It is shaped almost like a cube and is so proportioned as to be classic in form.  Modern conceptions of architecture are expressed in the sleekness and in the vertical lines.

There are sixteen storeys in the building and about a thousand rooms.  The basement, lofty and with large top-lighted dome is to be used as a restaurant and the ground floor for shops or showrooms and restaurant-café.

The occupants of the top floors will be able to enjoy fresh breezes in a healthy environment, unfamiliar in narrow streets and dark offices.

Every modern aid to cleanliness and efficiency is embodied.  The floors are of polished oak throughout the building.  

An electric vacuum cleaning apparatus draws the dust down to a receptacle in the basement.  

Express lifts are installed to travel at 450 feet per minute.  In every room there is an electric synchronised clock.

The architect has taken particular care to arrange for the most adequate lighting and ventilation.  

By widening the adjoining street to twice its previous breadth he improved the lighting at the same time as he enhanced the building perspective.  

The result is that people in the offices in Sunlight House will work under hygienic conditions.  The heating system of radiators is, further, conducive to cleanliness in the atmosphere.”

And at this point in the article I have almost lost the will to live.

Now I know that the newspaper story is a valuable contemporary account and no doubt the people who worked there were impressed but the piece reads just like a promotional extract from Mr Sunlight’s own notes.

An observation which is confirmed by the claim that

“Before this new pile was erected the site contained some of Manchester’s worst slums, and it is satisfactory to note, in view of the difficulties which Manchester and other places are having in the matter of removing slum populations and providing them with alternative accommodation that private enterprise has helped to transfer successfully the tenants of a congested area and put up a building with a rateable value of “30,000 a year.”

Which is where I shall leave Sunlight House for today, but there is more and I shall return tomorrow with just a little bit more on the building, its architect and his frustrated plans.

*Sunlight House, the Manchester Guardian, May 12, 1931


Photograph; properties on Quay Street, 1910, m68184,courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council 


Painting; Sunlight House, © 2013 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

When history joins science fiction …… and becomes a book for children of all ages

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when history collides with science fiction it’s bound to be fun*.

Well Jane Austen it ain’t but it is a start and perfectly fixes Peter Topping’s new book for kids of all ages.

“Chorlton Library is an Alien Spaceship” is the story of a boy called Chortle from Chorlton-cum-Hardy. 

It starts with that well known historic building, which is our library, weaves into that the idea that its shape might just resemble a spaceship, throws in an alien and there is the  story.

So, everyone knows that Chorlton Library was opened in 1914 and partly funded by that American steel magnate Andrew Carnegie.  

Few perhaps that the original plans travelled across the Atlantic in the Titanic, only getting as far as an iceberg, thereby delaying the building of the library till new plans could be sent to Mr. Carnegie for his approval.

And I doubt anyone will be able to identify who were the inspiration for the stone heads which flank the entrance.

But if you come along to the launch at Chorlton Library on November 26th at 3.45 pm you can be part of the story, join in the fun and get a free copy of the book while stocks last.

And that is it. 

Children of all ages are welcome; it won’t cost a thing and will be fun.

Location; Chorlton Library, Manchester Road

Pictures; the launch poster by Peter Topping, strange faces and an entrance, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2026

*It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife..." Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice 1813

Don't look back ... thoughts after finding Looking at Eltham, 1970

Front cover showing the High Street

Now Eltham is a long way from Chorlton but it was where I grew up and occasionally I am drawn back.

It is in south east London and was once in Kent.

It has an old Tudor barn long since converted into a restaurant, a medieval palace and a lot of my own personal history.

And I am back here again because of a tiny booklet dating from 1970 which I had entirely forgotten I had.*

I guess I must have picked it up on one of those trips to see the family and brought it back with me.

It was produced by the Eltham Society and was designed as a mix of history and current descriptions of the place.

But it is now 56 years old and so the contemporary accounts have themselves become old and dated which in its way makes it as much of a then and now publication as any which set out to mark the passage of time.

The High Street in 1910

And that is why I have come back to it, because here is a perfect time capsule, continuing old pictures of the High Street with what were once contemporary but are now also a record of an old Eltham long gone.

All of which is interesting enough to the historian but what is really fascinating is the section on  THE FUTURE for here the writers have taken the present and with a backward glance at past developments have speculated on how Eltham will change.

The High Street in 1970

What struck me was the preoccupation with the impact of the motor car both in the form of parking and congestion and of the coming motor ways.

"The motorways are not yet with us but the process of land acquisition is well advanced and corrugated hoardings and partly wrecked houses are already blighting our streets.  

It remains to be seen whether a town can survive the devastating experience of enormous engineering works which, when completed will draw a tight noose around its heart.”**

Of course the area did survive and remains a popular place to live and for many people they will not know any different.  And those like my sisters and friends who stayed have embraced the changes and still enjoy living there.

But when you are just a visitor it is different because although I missed most of the blight and certainly all of the building work when I do return I find the transition a bit odd and more than a little disconcerting.

It is a bit like someone has taken your best toy or better still your best memory and altered them.  Not enough to totally eliminate them but just enough to make them seem out of kilter with what was.

Advert for H.C.Payne

All of which is perhaps the best reason for not going back.

As they say nostalgia is a cruel thing which messes up the present and spoils the future.

H.C.Payne at 116 Eltham High Street was where I bought my first sports jacket, skinny knitted ties.  It was a place I loved and it is now a restauraunt.

So I will stick with the Eltham of 1970, after all I know what it was like I still have the book.

Location; Eltham, London

Pictures; from Looking at Eltham, Eltham Society 1970.  I haven’t asked them for permission to use the images and quote from the book but I hope they won’t mind.

* Looking at Eltham, Eltham Society 1970.  

** ibib page 55

When Esperanto came to Manchester .... Esperanto Congress, Manchester 1936 .... another story from Lawrence Beedle

 What took my interest when I spotted this poster stamp was the exonym for Manchester. 

It’s definitely Manchester. There is the Town Hall (1877), in the centre the Central Library (1934), the Ship Canal & Docks (1894) plus a couple of 5 storey cotton mills with tall chimneys. The other buildings look like stylised interpretations of the new Sunlight House (1932) and the Midland Bank building on King Street (1935). But I maybe just be imagining that. 

The stamp is approximately 5cm x 7cm. Not an official postage stamp but what is called by philatelists a Cinderella. Stamps affixed to letters for advertisement or propaganda and numerous other reasons like charity, Christmas, fund raising, private mail delivery service, etc. 

These are collected and traded just like real stamps with prices ranging from worthless to hundreds of pounds. This one has a price tag of nearly £5. I have not found who issued them, how many, or the country of origin.

The event promoted was a six day Esperanto Congress in Manchester commencing Sunday 2nd August 1936. Not the annual world conference, that was scheduled for Vienna, but one under auspices of SAT - Sennacieca Associo Tutmonda, translated as Worldwide Non-National Association. A left-wing organisation that attracted trade unionists, workers and socialists.

It was held at the large Co-Operative Hall, Downing Street, Ardwick. That was owned by the Manchester & Salford Equitable Society, and was the venue for the first annual Labour Party Conference back in February 1900. 

Newspaper reports state 200 delegates from 16 countries attended. The whole area was redeveloped in the 1970’s but there will be people who remember the stores and the hall.

The event attracted official attention. There was a civic reception at the Town Hall, fraternal greetings from Sir Walter Citrine of the TUC, and special postmarks from the Post Office. The BBC presented a short programme on the radio ‘Say it in Esperanto’ with some of the delegates.

In these modern times Esperanto is still being studied, spoken and written. There are Apps for your smart phone including Duolingo and Google Translate. Radio China International broadcasts an hour long radio programme in Esperanto on shortwave. SAT still have an annual congress and the 94th one was scheduled for Moscow this year.

Location; Manchester, 1936

Picture; The Esperanto Stamp, 1936, courtesy of Lawrence Beedle

With Alice McIlwrick, fighting elections in the 1920s in Didsbury and Chorlton

Alice McIlwrick should be remembered.

She was the first Labour candidate to contest a local election here in Chorlton in the November of 1928 and she did very well gaining 14% of the vote.*

But beyond some brief details of her role in the election campaign there was little I could find out about her.

Not that I ever forgot Alice, and I always told myself that at some point something new would turn up and of course it did.  In this case from her grandson who posted a comment on my orginal story.

Tony McIlwrick lives in Scotland and he wrote

“Alice McIlwrick (1881-1964) was my grandmother. She married in 1919 and had two children. She was a graduate and a strong believer in the value of education - both her children went to Manchester University, her son becoming an electrical engineer and her daughter becoming a GP. 

As well as education she was also an ardent feminist and held strong left wing views. Her husband's parents had emigrated to Kansas from Manchester in the 1880's but following the premature death of his mother Frederick McIlwrick and his two young siblings were brought to Manchester and raised by a maternal aunt. Frederick, Alice and their two children lived in Parrs Wood Road in the early 1920's but in 1926 moved to Barlow Moor Road where they stayed until 1945 when they moved to Bowdon, Altrincham. 

In 1961 Frederick & Alice moved to Davenham, near Northwich to live with their daughter and it was there that she died.”

This was all I needed to reignite the search and sure enough in the course of the morning I came across a reference to their marriage and the celebration of their daughter’s coming of age in 1943 and some tantalizing hints of a concert career as a contralto in the early 1920s.

Along the way I uncovered Frederick’s 1911 census return.

And then I was drawn back to the politics.

She was the first and for many years the only Labour candidate to have fought the Didsbury ward in a municipal election which accordng to the Labour historian Rhys Davies was a real challenge “in that forsaken quarter, knowing what our fate must be.”  Neverthess “after much thought and doubt, Mrs McIlwrick, B.A., an ardent Labourite, a very forcible speaker, well versed in municipal affairs decided to don our colours, in a by-election there on May 17th 1927.”**

The result was not really in question, with the Conservative candidate gaining 55% of the vote, the Liberal 34% and Alice garnering 11%.

But this was a significant achievement for the Labour party given “that our cause was so weak that there was hardly any help forthcoming even on the day of the poll.”

And rereading the accounts of the two elections she fought here in Chorlton in the November and December of 1928 there is no doubting that she was a formidable politican.

The Manchester Guardian had reported that she was a serious candidate who would do well in the contest, a view endorsed by the Labour Party who sent its M.P., R J Davies and the Councillor Wright Robinson to speak on the same platform.

And the record shows that she gained 14% of the vote in the November election and despite a much lower turn out in the following month lost only 2% at the December by-election.

The years either side of that election saw the Labour Party strengthen it postion.  In 1923 it formed its first ever government and  became the largest party in the House of Commons six years later.

And these were the years when Alice was particularly active here in south Manchester.

The posters from the 1924 General Election at the beginning of the story would have been familiar enough to her and would have been the first Labour posters supporting a parliamentary candidate to be posted up in Chorlton.

The years after the Great War had seen unemployment increase particularly in the old traditional heavy industries and touched on that feeling that the country had not become a  place “fit for heroes.”

Nor had that basic problem of unemployment gone away.  Only once did the figure of those out of work drop below 8% during the decade and so Labour’s call for the country to turn out the Conservatives coupled with an appeal to woman to vote Labour “for the children’s sake did not go unheeded.

Nationally Labour gained 287 seats while in Withington which included Chorlton Labour took 16% of the vote which was an increase of 7% five years earlier.

I would love to know Alice’s part in all of this and I rather think it will not be long before it is revealed.

Pictures; Labour Party campaign posters from 1924 and 1929

*When all eyes were on Chorlton, the local elections of 1928, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Alice%20McIlwrick

** Socialism in Surburbia, Rhys Davies, 1930

See also Posters from the 20th century, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Posters%20from%20the%2020th%20century